At Long Beach Yacht Club’s 49th Congressional Cup, Ian Williams endured his most difficult part of the week Friday night when it came time to pick his opponent for Saturday's championship sailoffs.

'It's really a hard choice,' he said after winning the privilege with a 16-2 won-lost record in the double round robins, well up on Simone Ferrarese (13-5), Ed Baird (12-6) and Mathieu Richard (11-7), who nudged out Adam Minoprio (10-8). 'In this situation it's all bad options.'

His choice: Ferrarese, the 15th-ranked match racer in the world who showed some skillfully aggressive form and whose only loss the last two days was to … Williams - by five seconds.

The other three semifinalists are all former winners: Williams the previous two years, Baird in 2004 and Richard in 2007. The final foursome also represents four nationalities: a Brit, an Italian, a Yank and a Frenchman, in order of their round robin records.

A fifth national, a Kiwi---Adam Minoprio of New Zealand---missed by a point in a frustrating loss to Baird in the next to last flight. Minoprio was called for a pre-start foul and led around the course, but never by enough to clear himself with a penalty turn.

He praised his crew later, saying, 'The guys sailed really well and gave us a chance to win. It just didn't happen.'

Another hard-luck tale was Scott Dickson's loss to Australia's young Jordan Reece. The Long Beach local hope, a native of New Zealand, had a runaway lead on the second upwind leg but rounded the alternate yellow mark buoy instead of the assigned orange buoy. Reece, sensing something was wrong and he had nothing to lose, followed Dickson around the yellow one, then also rounded the orange one.

'They asked me to call the [layline to] the windward mark,' he said, 'and I'm color blind so I called the yellow one.'

He was kidding. Although Atkins was on the boat, as an on-board guest he wasn't allowed to offer any suggestions.

Certainly, Ferrarese seemed more serious. While Williams noted that 'I can't remember a real handling error we made all week,' his upcoming opponent spoke cautiously.

'We're still feeling each other out,' he said. 'I'm happy that we're going to get a shot to win this event.'

An unofficial exhibition fleet race into the harbor followed Friday's racing and was the highlight of the week for Eric Monnin of Switzerland, who won only three of 18 match races but led the flock of spinnakers back to LBYC.

The sailoffs will be best-of-three. There also will be a fleet race for the six non-qualifiers.

Competition is at Belmont Veterans Memorial Pier on the Long Beach outer harbor starting at 11:30 a.m., conditions permitting.